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Concerns of adolescents as they develop and go through puberty.
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PSY 251: Human Growth and Development Dr. Nichols March 10, 2024 Adolescence Biosocial Development When I started to notice my body was changing, I was eleven years old and in sixth grade. I noticed that I was growing in many different ways, which created a lot of stress for me, especially because none of my friends at the time were experiencing the same changes, and I felt alone even though I had two older sisters I could talk to. A year or two before I started noticing the changes, I was still in elementary school, in 4th and 5th grades. At this point, I was concerned with hanging out with my best friends on the weekend or what I would have for dinner. I knew that every day, I would get home from school, call my mom to tell her that I was home safely, and simultaneously ask if I could go over to my friend's house or what we were having for dinner. At this point in my life, I was concerned about whether I would be having fun and what I could do to have fun and enjoy my time. I would always try to get outside when I had the chance, even if it was just to ride my scooter or go for a walk around the ponds we had in the neighborhood. Just one year before I started to notice my body changing, I was never focused on anything too long, and I liked to do anything and everything I could do; that did not stay the same. After noticing the changes to my body and my development, I noticed how different things were becoming important to me. I cared too much about what I looked like, whether I was thin enough, tall enough, or pretty enough. I would spend whole nights sobbing about the amount of ance I had and how ugly I felt. I did not care about going out to run around and play, I wanted
to stay in bed and do nothing. I did not care about the bigger picture; I would hyper-fixate on the small things that I saw as flaws in my body and who I was as a person. I cared about if I was popular and if I wasn’t popular, making sure the popular kids did not hate me because I did not want to have a target on my back. Everything I cared about after puberty hit was superficial but made deep and lasting scars on my body that, looking back on now, make me regret how much I cared about the small, insignificant things. I feel as though in this time period when I was going through so many changes mentally and physically, my parents could have done a lot more to support me. Since I was the youngest child, they turned to my two older sisters to raise me, but one was also going through those changes at the same time, so she was not much help because every encounter we had with each other ended in one of us screaming at each other. That left one older sister with a daughter of her own to try and take care of and educate three young girls about different things simultaneously, which is nearly impossible. My parents did not talk to me about any of the changes I would face or how they could make me feel, and I believe that made me feel more secluded and more withdrawn to myself, making those wounds and the imperfections I felt even more painful. I think them giving me guidance or really anything would have helped me in the long run and would have made me feel much more supported and confident in who I was and who I was turning into at that time.